Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins on Evolutionary Theory.

A very careful reading and indeed a re-reading of On the Origin of Species is required in order to fully understand Darwin's view on Evolutionary Theory. The one thing that he did not claim is that his theory of natural selection was the full story of evolution. In his own words he states 'I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.’  Darwin was a competitive scientist and in his great book he treads a fine line between expounding his theory in order to convince the public of its efficacy and pointing out the fact that it was an incomplete explanation of evolution. He knew that natural selection was a systematic mechanism but in order for it to create new species this mechanism required a constant supply of variation or new design. Unlike neo-Darwinism's reliance on the copying error as the source of variation Darwin was convinced that there was a system for generating variety which was non-random, 'I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if variations were due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of variation.' At many points in his book he admits to this missing link in his theory. In chapter five for example he refers to ' a tendency to vary, due to causes of which we are quite ignorant.' He coins the term 'generative variability' to emphasize his belief in the existence of laws of variety-generation and talks of 'an innate tendency to new variations.' But he admits that 'Our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound'. He is convinced that 'There must be some efficient cause for each slight individual difference.' When discussing the evolution of instincts he speaks of 'variations produced by the same unknown causes which produce slight deviations of bodily structure.'

If the greatest ever thinker on evolution was convinced that there would eventually be discovered the 'laws of variation' why did twentieth century biology completely ignore Darwin on this score? Neo-Darwinism refutes Darwin's ideas and claims that the incredible outpouring of new variety, which acts as the source of the raw material required by natural selection, is due to copying errors, a rather lame, non-scientific claim. The majority of modern thinkers on evolutionary theory seem to ignore the fact that evolution requires both a mechanism and the raw material required by this mechanism.  This modern view was summarised by one of the greatest ever advocates for neo-Darwinism, Richard Dawkins, when in an article in New Scientist magazine he wrote, ‘Natural selection is quintessentially non-random, yet it is lamentably often miscalled random. This one mistake underlies much of the sceptical backlash against evolution. Chance cannot explain life. Design is as bad an explanation as chance because it raises bigger questions than it answers. Evolution by natural selection is the only workable theory ever proposed that is capable of explaining life, and it does so brilliantly.’ No, Mr Dawkins, it does not explain life brilliantly and no one is saying that natural selection is a random process. Natural selection is an obvious and simple consequence of reproduction and overcrowding. It eliminates the less fit. It does not design or create new organisms. It works on what is already there and leaves behind organisms and their genes that are better survivors. It can only work when it has a variety of organisms to choose from. It does not create those survivors. It merely changes the average characteristics of future generations by eliminating some and letting others continue into the future. It is a pure mechanistic non-random process, but it does not design new organisms.

Biologists are not usually fond of mathematics but we have to accept that the study of evolution should essentially be the study of the algorithmic process. It should be the study of systems and of the logical outcomes of a process that was set in motion possibly 4 billion years ago. This process can now be explored with the help of computers and the job started by Darwin can now only be taken a stage further if mathematicians studying systems and algorithms get together with biologists studying genes and the chemistry of life. Derek Hough has long argued for the existence of an algorithmic process as the source of new variety. His ideas, which have been previously known as the theory of the self-developing genome, (www.molinu.org/self_developing_genome) are underpinned by arithmetic but are summarised for the non-mathematician at www.evolutionarytheory.co.uk.